


what breaks in daybreak

by FifteenDozenTimes



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Anxiety, M/M, Yoga, haphazard domesticity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 16:46:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12939483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FifteenDozenTimes/pseuds/FifteenDozenTimes
Summary: In the cracks between, something begins to take root.





	what breaks in daybreak

**Author's Note:**

> Gladnis Week Day 4: Early Morning Hours

Ignis’ ability to stick to his routine no matter how thoroughly his life is shaken up has always been a comfort to him. The morning after everything went straight to Hell he opened his eyes at five o’clock on the dot and for just a few moments was calm enough to take deep, steadying breaths without aching. He’d risen at five the morning before, as well, and it had given him just barely enough time to get his own emotions under control so he could be calm for the rest of them.

He wakes at five when they camp, learns what the sunrise looks like all over Leide. Everything is falling apart, everything is upside down, but he can lay down a mat on the strangely warm rock and run through a brief yoga routine, and he can cook a simple, sturdy breakfast to keep them fighting through the day because all they can do now is fight. He can feel like Ignis again, for an hour, and if that’s the only thing that keeps him able to put one foot in front of the other after an interminably long day, well, it’s enough.

By anyone else’s standards, Gladio and Prompto are also early risers, emerging sometime between six and seven to throw a pair of sleepy smiles Ignis’ way before taking off on their morning run. Ignis watches them disappear down the beach, into the woods, in a bank of fog that hasn’t burned off yet, sips his coffee in peace, and is ready to let his alone time end by the time they get back. High from the run, excited about food, naturally boisterous, they usually make enough noise to wake Noctis, a nice break from having to fight with him each morning. 

The orderly, predictable portion of Ignis’ day ends with the four of them lazily eating breakfast, planning the day ahead, watching the sun creep higher in the sky, pretending they can just be normal boys on a road trip. At night, when Ignis lets himself comprehend the hugeness of what they’ve become a part of and it makes him feel like he’s drowning, that’s what he holds on to with white-knuckled ferocity.

*

Darkness creeps towards them, slow and inexorable, literal and metaphorical. Ignis pokes at the banked fire when he wakes each morning, coaxing it back to life so he can see well enough to do his yoga, to start breakfast. More often than not, Gladio emerges from the tent before Ignis has started cooking, grumbling about his internal clock and not being able to run until the sun comes up.

“Sorry to intrude on your whole thing,” he says, more than once, as if sitting quietly while his brain catches up to his body is an intrusion. 

“You’re not,” Ignis says, every time. He needs his time alone, more than the rest of them except Noct, but for reasons Ignis can’t quite put a finger on, Gladio doesn’t seem to count. 

Some days he rises later, when the first light peeks over the horizon, and Ignis finds himself standing in the dark talking to no one and waiting for Gladio’s sleepy grunt in response. Some days he wakes at nearly the same time as Ignis, gets the fire going for them more quickly than Ignis can, and Ignis starts explaining the yoga routine to him, slowing down so Gladio can get into position beside him and they can move together. 

Gladio stirs oatmeal or flips eggs or carefully toasts bread over the fire while Ignis brews coffee, because he trusts Gladio with his life but trusts no one with his coffee. They talk, when there are things to say, and let silence hang comfortably around their shoulders when there aren’t. When Prompto wakes, in near-perfect sync with the sun, they take off running, and Ignis sips his coffee while he watches them disappear.

Some mornings Ignis simply sits and watches the smoldering coals of last night’s fire, unwilling to start his day without Gladio for reasons he chooses not to examine. Sometimes Gladio is only a little behind him and the delay doesn’t matter. Sometimes he isn’t, and Ignis watches the inky darkness fade to gray sitting cross-legged on the rock.

*

Noctis recovers more royal weapons, battles a God, comes out the other side weary but with a steely resolve in his eyes that leaves Ignis reeling from the resemblance to his father. They lose the car, they lose Jared (Gladio sits on the balcony late into the night, and the three of them pretend they can’t hear his breathing go ragged), they try and fail to sneak through an Imperial base and somehow emerge from a pile of wreckage victorious. Ignis lies awake in hotels and caravans, not quite able to make himself get up and pick his way around the others to do yoga.

Some mornings he can see Gladio across the room, over Prompto and Noctis, reading by the light of a small lamp clipped onto his book. Some mornings Ignis catches himself wishing he shared with Gladio, so they could soak up each other’s company in the dark and quiet of the early morning. Ignis catches himself watching Gladio in the rearview mirror sometimes, when a headache is creeping out to his temples, or across the field after a hunt before he collects himself to start administering curatives. Ignis can stick to his routine in any circumstance, but he’s starting to slip, and the need for his quiet mornings in the open air is so thick he can almost taste it.

“You doin’ okay?” Gladio asks him, more than once, falling behind Noct and Prompto on long walks to check in.

“I’m exhausted,” Ignis says, every time. “But I’m alright.”

They make camp for the first time in a while when the horizon is just starting to turn pink, when Gladio starts fidgeting, when he’s asked Ignis when he thinks they should stop so many times Iris, Noct, and Prompto are all rolling their eyes at him. There’s a river near enough to bathe and wash some clothes in without worrying about being out too late, although Gladio anxiously watches the sky and keeps trying to hurry Iris along. No one tells him to calm down, not even Iris; they all know him too well for that. His shoulders lose their tension while Iris helps Ignis cook, while Prompto tries to exaggerate a story about one of their hunts and fails because he’s a terrible liar, while they sit around the fire with their chocobos and eat, and relax, and one by one disappear into the tent to fall asleep.

Gladio aims a lopsided, sheepish smile at Ignis when he finally stands up and leaves Ignis alone at the campfire; what he thinks he’s apologizing for Ignis has no earthly idea. The shape of that smile lingers, burned into his vision, while he checks on the birds one last time and banks the fire. The darkness closes in around him, pushes its way into the tent behind him, and tonight when he begins to feel the air closing around him he winds up reaching for Gladio, naked in the river, bellowing _now is not the time to deep condition_ at the clump of trees Iris is using for privacy.

Ignis sleeps, as he so often does these days, fitfully; when he wakes, he emerges from the tent to see Gladio already awake, glowing in the light from the newly awakened fire, brow furrowed and shoulders just a little hunched. 

“Too crowded to sleep,” Gladio says, and Ignis nods. No need to acknowledge he knows Gladio tried to sleep with one eye open all night, the way he did at the beginning, not if Gladio doesn’t want to.

Their yoga mats lean against the folding table Ignis uses as a prep surface, the brand new one Gladio picked up in Lestallum leaning against the well-loved worn-out mat Ignis brought from Insomnia. Ignis just looks at them for a moment; he could take a few steps in the opposite direction, sit next to Gladio on the rock, let the fire and Gladio’s quiet strength warm him until the sun decides to show up. He could, but he doesn’t, just picks up their mats and tosses Gladio’s at him without looking to see if he’s paying attention.

“I’ve missed this,” Gladio says, eventually, voice barely strained while he balances upside-down on his forearms, head lowered nearly to the ground. He could bend his legs towards his arms if he tried, Ignis is certain, but the first time Ignis suggested it Gladio just laughed.

“Your form certainly hasn’t suffered,” Ignis says. He’s known Gladio long enough to know his slightly-breathless chuckle is at Ignis’ expense, the _really can’t turn it off, can you?_ left unspoken. Ignis sighs, as much as he can with his body curled up the way it is. “I missed it, too.”

They lower themselves back to the ground in near-perfect sync, and finish in comfortable silence just before Iris emerges from the tent. Ignis makes coffee; Iris teases Gladio about only helping because she criticized, Gladio puts her in a headlock, Iris kicks his shin hard enough it makes Gladio curse loud enough to wake any nearby wildlife. The oatmeal burns at the bottom, and Gladio scoops the blackened bits into his own bowl without complaint.

*

The house at Caem is beautiful. Every moment they delay feels like an inexcusable waste to Ignis, but Noctis needs - they all need - to take a moment to breathe. Gladio and Ignis do their yoga on the lawn, listening to the ocean break against the cliffs. Gladio runs with Iris and Prompto after the sun comes up and they come back stinking of sweat and salty sea air. Noctis spends nearly the entire day in a plush chair near a window, staring out the window for hours at a time or coaxing Monica into quiet conversations about the Citadel and the Crown City the night they escaped.

Ignis runs drills with Dustin, drills he used to be able to run in his sleep. He’s gotten sloppy, the sort of specialized quick-and-quiet dispatching he was training in not well-suited to wild beasts, or demons, or MTs. Dustin clucks his tongue when Ignis fails yet again to land silently on the grass, but it’s been so long since imperfection had stakes lower than a scratch or bite or bullet to the shoulder that it only spurs him on. Ignis can’t afford to get distracted by his fear of failure anymore.

At some point, when Ignis’ eyes are stinging with sweat, his legs complaining about launching him into another backflip just to prove he remembers how to land, shoulders straining from switching between daggers and lance, Gladio and Iris come around the back of the house with a basket, a blanket, and a stack of plates. Neither one would go so far as to truly interrupt a training session, but the message is clear.

“I forgot how fucking scary he is,” Gladio says, while Iris throws her special brand of rapidfire questions and demands for training at Dustin.

“And me?”

“I don’t forget anything about you,” Gladio says, with a laugh that feels odd next to the seriousness of his voice.

*

Ignis takes a deep breath, and lets it out. He snaps at Noct and Prompto about how careless they are. He regrets it. He takes a deep breath, and lets it out. Drives hours north to the Vesperpool, headache like a fist squeezing his brain tight. Takes a deep breath, lets it out. Stops stock still when he sees Ardyn’s car, so suddenly the boys crash into him and nearly knock him off his feet. Takes a deep breath, lets it out, clenches and unclenches his fist.

Gladio wouldn’t leave without good reason. Ignis is more than capable of stepping up in his absence. Both of those things are true, and neither of them seem to make a difference no matter how much Ignis reminds himself. Ignis has been so proud of himself, how well he’s managed to keep it together, how little he’s let the reality of their situation knock him off-balance, how he’s managed to limit his anxiety to the dark of night or the moments before he leaves the tent in the morning. 

Twice, Prompto has to free Ignis from the crushing grip of a skeleton by blowing it to pieces; Ignis loses count of the times he barely rolls out of the range of spells thrown by Noctis into a mob of Crème Brûlées. Aranea keeps putting her body between Noct and demons. Prompto starts doing the same to Ignis. Ignis looks up at the impossible water above them; Gladio would love it. Ignis just feels, again, always, like drowning.

“You miss him,” Noctis says, sitting with Ignis on the floor of Aranea’s ship.

“I do,” Ignis says, and doesn’t pull away when Noctis knocks their knees together, sits with him just like that until they eventually land.

*

“Hey.”

Ignis blinks himself into consciousness; Gladio is standing blurrily over the bed, holding a vague shape in each arm. 

“Is everything alright?” Ignis asks, while he reaches for his glasses. Gladio’s edges go from fuzzy to sharp, the shapes resolve into their yoga mats.

“C’mon,” he says, and steps aside so Ignis can ease out of bed, fumble for the soft t-shirt he discarded in the middle of the night when Prompto turned into a tiny furnace, and follow him out the door. Ignis expects Gladio to turn off towards the small gym once they reach the lobby, but he walks straight out into the courtyard.

It’s bright as it always is in Lestallum at night, but quieter than Ignis has ever heard it. All the night owls have gone home, and it’s too early for the day shift to rise. Gladio lays his mat out near the fountain, and then Ignis’. Ignis just watches him, range of motion only slightly hindered by the fresh scar on his chest. Ignis can stand there next to Gladio, move with him, comfortably quiet while they push all the tension out of their bodies, and they can go get breakfast, and Ignis will stop having to tell himself how to breathe.

Ignis crosses the courtyard in slow, even steps, feet landing silently on the stone, and instead of getting into position on his mat he steps onto Gladio’s and kisses him. Gladio doesn’t seem surprised, just sighs into it and wraps his big arm around Ignis, hand resting warm and perfect in the small of Ignis’ back. Ignis runs his thumb over the ugly line burned into Gladio’s chest, keeps doing it even when he pulls back to get his bearings.

“That help?” Gladio asks, eyes crinkling at the corners and impossibly warm.

“ _You_ help,” Ignis says. He pushes up on his toes to press a soft kiss where Gladio’s new and old scars intersect. “Don’t ever leave me again.”

“Never,” Gladio says; Ignis breathes in and out against the marred skin of his forehead, and believes him.


End file.
